1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to a system and method for providing operator training through the synchronized playback of video recorded during a trip or performance and a visually-modeled simulation of the same trip or performance. Data and video are recorded simultaneously from an actual trip or performance. The data is modeled into a visual simulation and synchronized with the recorded video imagery recorded during the same time period.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various methodologies have been developed that provide flight training and/or analysis of prerecorded activities. One methodology provides a realistic, three-dimensional (3D) software simulation of flight in order to allow pilots to practice flight techniques without actually flying in an airplane. An example of this methodology is the software program called “Flight Simulator” by Microsoft Corporation. In this and other similar flight simulation programs, a user can complete a simulated flight and then play the simulation back to analyze their performance. Programs of this nature provide realistic simulations of flight in an artificially generated 3D environment in which aircraft behaviors are modeled quite accurately with respect to the physics of flight. However real the simulation may appear, the information produced is still only a simulation and cannot provoke the behaviors and responses of a student in a real airplane in a real life training situation whose behavior has life and death consequences. Neither can a simulation provide the sensory perception imparted to a person in flight by an actual airplane that is acted upon by external stimulations such as weather, loading, and altitude; although existing simulation programs do include weather information accurately based on particular dates and times, but this information does not impart actual sensory perception to simulation pilots.
Inventors have developed full-motion or partial-motion flight simulator systems that attempt to improve on software-only flight simulators. U.S. Pat. No. 6,634,885, issued to Hodgetts et al., describes a system that mounts a simulated aircraft flight deck onto a motion platform that is moved by electric motors to recreate the motions one would feel in an actual aircraft. This system can be coupled with and controlled by a flight simulator program such as Microsoft Flight Simulator.
As an example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,527,980, issued to Miller, describes a flight simulating video game system that uses an aircraft-shaped enclosure resting on a parabolic dish to produce pitch and roll movements based on the operator's movements of the flight controls. A monitor inside the enclosure displays simulated flight images that are oriented based on the current position of the aircraft-shaped enclosure to simulate the view through an aircraft window.
The addition of movement and tactile feedback is a distinct improvement over a software-only system for flight training, but demands a complex, bulky, and expensive electro-mechanical platform to add even the simplest motion, making it impractical for private home use.
More advanced virtual simulation systems, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,848,698, which is incorporated herein by reference, provide both modeled views of an aircraft and diagrammatic information such as a flight wall path demonstrating the path and altitude the aircraft traveled through its flight.
Typical flight simulation data involves transforming real flight data into a believable model. Graphical rendering has not yet reached the point where a 3D computer generated model can look as real as actual flight video. The more realistic a virtual simulation can be, the better it can serve as a training and teaching tool without endangering life and equipment by training in live-flight situations.